By Greg Grisolano

ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com

Kenneth Hill is looking for a better way to make a living.

“I’m working, but I’m looking for a better job,” said Hill, 50, as he took a break from browsing for new jobs at a career fair Tuesday at Northpark Mall. “I’m trying to stay up and to better myself.”

More than 200 people passed through the fair by noon, according to organizers.

Some, like Hill, want a better job. Others, like Ray Oldham, of Carthage, want any kind of work at all.

“I’m kind of trying to get out of manufacturing,” said Oldham, 36. “I’ve been doing that since high school.”

Oldham said he’s been unemployed for two weeks, but he’s not worried.

“I should be OK,” he said. “I was on my last job for 11 years. Luckily, I’m not married. It’s just me.”

While he has a job at a local manufacturing company, Hill said the ongoing economic downturn is slowing production where he works, and he’s looking for something better.

“The job I have, I’ve been on for 10 months, and it’s not really going anyplace,” he said. “Before I just totally lose the job, I’m searching for another one before the money stops.”

Some of those at the job fair are on the front lines of a souring economy, looking for ways to make ends meet amid rising energy and food prices, and gasoline prices that recently set records before falling back.

A sluggish economy and high gas prices are being blamed for the closing later this year of Superior Industries’ wheel manufacturing plant in Pittsburg, Kan.

Unemployment in Kansas was at 4.6 percent for July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a federal employment-tracking agency, below the national rate of about 5.7 percent. Oklahoma’s statewide unemployment rate stood at about 4 percent for the month, according to the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.

But Missouri had a statewide unemployment rate of 6.4 percent at the end of July, according to the Missouri Department of Economic Development.